Newsletter

Letters to the editor

I was in Judge Tom Edenfield's court earlier this year in a fender-bender case. My sentence was 10 consecutive church services at Woodlawn Baptist Church. My Sunday school is part of my worship also.

I was the last one in the first session to be heard in court that day, so I was able to observe many things. My heart was saddened to see people who had let themselves slip to a low ebb, paraded before the bench in chains like animals. Also, I observed as the young people approached with shoes untied, flip-flops, shirttails hanging out, bad body posture, no respect for themselves or society and no remorse whatsoever.

After a long wait, a very long afternoon, I stepped forward to answer for my misconduct, and there seemed to have been a change in the atmosphere of the courtroom. The judge asked me, "Where do you go to church?" Only the spirit of the Lord had gone before me to prompt a question such as that. In a state of anxiety, I was a little hesitant to answer because of the nervousness I was feeling.

I was also reminded of the Recorder's Court of the late 1930s, when I was still in my late teens.

You need to visualize a tract of about 50 acres, located southeast of where the Grace Methodist Church is located on Waters Avenue. This was an area known as the Brown farm, owned and operated by the county to house prisoners and to farm. They grew some vegetables such as corn and potatoes and sugar cane. All the work was done by prisoners.

Those incarcerated did not have an exercise room or gymnasium. Once they became a guest of the Brown farm, they tried hard not to get any future invitations there.

This was before McDonald's and Burger King. This was an era of 5-cent hotdogs and 10-cent hamburgers. At the Coney Island on Whitaker and Broughton streets, my cousin, a friend and myself would occasionally stop in at Oglethorpe and Habersham streets on court day and listen to cases. This was one of our biggest entertainments since it didn't cost anything.

Mercer Jordan, the judge, had a speech impediment and used a small tin device to enhance his voice to be audible. The sentence, usually the same for everyone, was "30 Brown or 30 green" - 30 days at the Brown farm, or 30 dollars. I remember one woman charged with selling moonshine. They knew she was selling it but it had taken several searches to catch her.

She had it sitting out on her kitchen table in plain sight in a water bucket, charging 25 cents per dipper. When her case was called, she walked straight toward the judge and said, "Your honor, high priest..." That's all I heard because the place went into an uproar.

DELDON SMITH

Garden City

Voters, do your homework

before school board races

It is more important to vote for credentials than for popularity or race. What experience do the candidates for the president of the Savannah-Chatham County school board have in educating children in kindergarten through the 12th grade?

Wake up Savannah. Stop voting because of a candidate's race or popularity. Educate yourself. Research their qualifications and make choices that will benefit our children. Do your homework.

JILL N. McCALL

Savannah

Vote in November to

cut the puppet strings

Thanks for David Rupel's Sept. 6 letter, "If anyone disgraced uniform, it was Bush, not Kerry," in which he expressed offense to Bill Helms' Sept. 4 insulting letter ("It's the 'Demolition' Party, not Democratic Party").

Mr. Rupel's letter highlighted some facts best considered, rather than keep one's head buried in the sand full of politically motivated rhetoric and deceptions the media reported during the 2004 election.

A timely and historically important election is coming up in November. Let's hope that all our citizens will cast their vote responsibly to mandate whatever changes are necessary for better representation. We now seem to be mired in a stagnation of puppeteering.

THOMAS L. EDWARDS

Savannah

Sales tax foe suffers

from tassel rash

A week ago Wednesday, I awakened with a very bad rash. A call to my dermatologist had me in her office very quickly.

"What is it?" I asked anxiously. "Poison ivy again?"

"No," she said grimly. "Much, much worse. You have tassel rash."

"Tassel rash," I repeated dumbly. "What's that?"

"Tassel rash is what you get when you spend any time around suits. Now, all I have to do is culture it to see if it's the Alan Edmunds or Cole Haan strain. But either one responds to the same ointment."

I asked if the ointment was necessary. "Yes, it is," she said, "unless you want it to escalate to tassel twirl, which at your age is not pretty at all."

So off I went with the ointment and instructions for its use. I was not happy about it but it was mitigated by the following thought: The night before, on Sept. 19, I watched as the SPLOST/ESPLOST was voted on and passed by a small margin.

The tassels had over $150,000 in their war chest to spend. Our opposition had $77. The margins were very small in many precincts.

So I shall certainly be watching very closely to see how this tax money is spent. Because $450 million is more than a little scratch.

BETH A. KINSTLER

Savannah

City soccer league changes

were cold and calculated

My comments are in response to the Letter to the Editor from Gary Wright ("Soccer dad is misinformed, and his son is welcome," Sept. 25).

Stating something as fact does not make it true. It has always been a city league, and more importantly, a city-subsidized program. It has been so since before Gary Wright was placed in charge of the Coastal Georgia Soccer Association and was, in fact, running the "other" organization in town.

Back then, the boot was on the other foot, and Mr. Wright was on the other side, pleading the case for inclusion. It's funny how a small amount of power changes a man's point of view.

The premeditated way the CGSA executive board pulled the U6/U8 teams out of the city league the week before it commenced was cold and calculated - especially after they had agreed only a few weeks earlier that this would never happen.

The league being developmental is only the latest of a long line of excuses being used that people do not believe. We all know what the reasons are for this move.

Calling something 'in-house' when you are the only house in town does not make it so. There is a new house now, and you can "huff and puff" all you like but it won't blow down.